Considerable attention has been placed on the development of ratchet wrenches with a smaller head, capable of being used in close quarters. These conventional ratchet wrenches, while being acceptable, have two major drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is that considerable room is needed to swing the wrench bar back and forth to effect tightening. If the room available is small then tightening is difficult at best. The other problem is that the gears of conventional ratchet wrenches offer more resistance to turning than does the nut or bolt being tightened. When this occurs no ratchet action is possible as the nut or bolt turn and not the ratchet gears.
Therefore it is an object of this invention to provide a ratchet wrench which can effect tightening of a nut or bolt in spaces which are too small for the needed swing of a conventional ratchet wrench. It is a further object to provide a ratchet wrench which can be used to tighten nuts or bolts with a reversible ratcheting action even though the turning resistance of the nuts or bolts is less than the resistance of the nuts or bolts is less than the resistance offered by conventional ratchet wrenches. A still further object of this invention is to provide a ratchet wrench which will enable the user to achieve tightening of a nut or bolt by two different modes, which modes may be used at the same time if desired.